Sagnlandet Lejre: Historic Greenspace

Question 1:Historic Greenspace 

Based on your visit today to Lejre, summarise the impact that the Danish landscape has and on the Danish as a people, and vice versa.

Sagnlandet Lejre Landscape

Sagnlandet Lejre, known as Land of Legends, is a historic greenspace and archeological site of reconstructions of ancient living environments. Living quarters and gardens present a bygone era in Danish history as the way everyday life was conducted in ancient times of Denmark. The preservation of some ancient corpses on the land create a type of "time vault."  Bodies preserved in bogs of Sagnlandet Lejre or, in one case, in a wooden coffin bridge the gap and create a learning lens of how Denmark’s land has been an historic incubator for citizens, tourists, historians and archeologists. Through exhibitions and archeological artifacts, this space lends an identity to the Danes as an historic site of ancestral roots, social foundations and prehistoric civilizations. 

Following the Bronze Age, Danish people turned to iron as their main metal source. This advancement came from the convenience of the fact that Denmark’s land is filled with iron-rich soil. Indigenous materials assisted the Danish in defining their lifestyle on the land. Specifically, iron was used to make weapons; thus, the land and the way it was cultivated shaped the Danish lifestyle and the development of their culture and war weapons.

Sagnlandet Lejre's interpretation of what Blacksmith's work place probably looked like during the Iron Age. This is where iron was distilled from dirt and molded into weapons and tools.

One of the major effects that Danish people have had on the Danish landscape is deforestation. Since farming emerged around 3,000 BCE, the shift from hunter-gather drastically changed the ways the Danes interacted with the land. Through the cultivation of agricultural parts of forests, fields were cleared for material use. This method not only became a way in how the Danes gathered food but also their interaction with the land. Now, the Danes shaped the land, as opposed to natural elements such as ice and water shaping the landscape up on which the Danish lived and farmed.